Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) display terminals, such as the 3Com PalmPilot(.TM.) and the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) WorkPad(.TM.) have been building a user base over the past few years. Current estimates are that there are a few million of these devices in present usage. While these personal devices have found limited selective markets among users with specific needs and habits, they have not, as yet, found the widespread appeal which was expected when they first began to appear almost a decade ago. Consequently, the technology is seeking applications of greater mass appeal. One area of great potential is in the area communication through the World Wide Web (Web) or Internet (used synonymously). In this connection, uses involving communication within the Web still require a fair degree of computer sophistication on the part of the user in receiving software via the Web, and in installing the software for basic program loading or in loading program upgrades. The user has to try to manipulate the very limited memory or storage resources available on the personal palm-type device in the installation of software and software upgrades.
With the globalization of computer system platforms involved in and linked through the Web, it has become increasingly common to distribute software and software upgrades which affect a wide variety of different Web computer system platforms through global software distribution packages such as Tivoli Corporation's software distribution package, the Tivoli Management Agent which will install and/or upgrade software across a wide variety of computer system platforms from the PC to enterprise system levels. Because such global software distribution packages must function to distribute software upgrades including enterprise level, the distribution package is relatively large and requires a considerable amount of Random Access Memory (RAM) capacity in each device which it services. This does not present any problems to most of the computers which are being upgraded by the package; even PCs can provide sufficient RAM capacity. However, personal digital assistants, i.e. personal palm-type devices, have very limited RAM, and thus lack the capacity to load such global software distribution packages. On the other hand, the global distribution packages are not dividable. Even though a great amount of the data in the package is intended for higher order systems and not required to upgrade the personal palm-type devices, the global software distribution package is not dividable into just the components needed to handle the distribution to just the personal device. Each computer or system being distributed to or upgraded must store the entire global software distribution package in its RAM.